The Supreme Court yesterday refused applications by the Commonwealth Bar Association and the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales. They had sought to appear as amici curiae to inform Court on the Constitutional Act of 2005 of the UK, which refers to the removal of judges.

The Supreme Court held that they were foreign institutions and their interventions were not needed. Dr. Sunil Cooray appeared for them. Those applications did not relate to the questions of law before the Court, the Supreme Court said.

Attorney General Palitha Fernando, PC, in his submissions to the Supreme Court, said that the Attorney General had the right to be heard in any proceeding before the Supreme Court, according to Article 134(10) of the Constitution of Sri Lanka.

The AG is the appellant in the appeal argued in the Supreme Court, challenging the decision of the Court of Appeal, which quashed the findings of the Parliamentary Select Committee which recommended the impeachment of the then Chief Justice Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake.

The respondent, Dr. Bandaranayake, argued that AG was not a party in the Court of Appeal and, therefore, could not appeal to the Supreme Court.

The Centre for Human Rights and Research (CHR) Sri Lanka, www.chrsrilanka.com the sister organization of Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) www.caffe.lk, was established in 2010 in a bid to address the growing human rights concerns in the country and to educate the people about issues which have been neglected by the main stream media or civil society groups for various reasons. In addition to our continuous work with CSOs and human rights activism, in the past four years we have studied, spoken about and published greatly on Freedom of Information, Academic Freedom, and the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).